Democrat: ‘Testosterone-Laden Individuals Who Have Blood on Their Hands’ Say More Guns Will Make Us Safer

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said on Wednesday that Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is among the “testosterone-laden individuals who have blood on their hands” for arguing that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens would make the country safer.

“The notion that more Americans, quote-unquote in the words of Gov. Perry, ‘packing heat,’ will make us safer is not founded in reality in facts or in history,” Himes said at a Capitol Hill press conference to call for gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn, which left 20 children and 6 adults dead.

“It is founded in the fantasy of testosterone-laden individuals who have blood on their hands for articulating that idea,” Himes said.

If the player does not load, please check that you are running the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.

“We will not fail because there are good arguments standing against us; we will fail because of the inevitable drift of attention,” he added.

Himes joined House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other congressional Democrats attending the press conference who called for a ban on high-capacity “assault” magazines, as well as a ban on "assault" weapons.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) said, “This time is different,” in making the case for stricter gun laws.

On Monday, Gov. Rick Perry said he hoped there would not be a “knee-jerk” reaction by politicians following the tragedy in Newtown.

"One of the things that I hope we don’t want to see from the federal government is a knee-jerk reaction from Washington, D.C., when there is an event that occurs, that they can come in and think they know the answer,” Perry said.

Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprungreportedly died after confronting shooter Adam Lanza, during the attack. Governor Perry said he would support allowing teachers and administrators to carry concealed handguns, but that local school districts should set their own policies.

Himes said this type of thinking is “pernicious.”

“If six months from now we gather and we’ve done nothing, it won’t be because the arguments against doing something have been good,” he said. “There are no arguments against doing something and part of the point of our being here today is to ask not just our colleagues but the American people to join us in this effort.”

“And there are no arguments against doing so, starting with the pernicious argument most lately articulated by Gov. Rick Perry of Texas,” Himes said. “This argument that more guns in a nation awash in guns will make us safer--the facts, the history, the data show that that is not true.”

“A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a suicide or a murder, than it is to be used in self-defense,” he said. “A study by the Rand Corporation of trained officers of the law in a situation of an exchange of gunfire found that those officers hit their intended target less than 2 out of 10 times.”